Agafay: a magical evening in the desert

The stone desert Désert d’A­gafay is locat­ed a lit­tle less than an hour out­side Mar­rakech in a south­east­er­ly direc­tion with great views of the High Atlas. Although it does­n’t have the impres­sive dunes of the Ergs south of the Atlas, this bar­ren land with vis­tas of the often snow-cov­ered moun­tains is well worth a visit.

An overnight stay in one of the camps is an excit­ing expe­ri­ence, and even if you only stay for a sun­set din­ner, you will not regret it.

If you spend more than 3 days in Mar­rakech and do not have the time to do a round trip to the sandy deserts in south­ern Moroc­co, you should def­i­nite­ly plan a trip here.

Out of town for dinner

Trav­el­ers are spoiled with din­ner choic­es in Mar­rakech: In addi­tion to his­toric restau­rants in charm­ing time-hon­ored court­yards with orange and palm trees, there are dreamy restau­rants on rooftop ter­races, high above the med­i­na. Com­pet­ing with them are the kitchens of the Riads, where excel­lent menus are pre­pared tra­di­tion­al­ly. The new town, on the oth­er hand, presents itself with a vari­ety of styl­ish restau­rants of the cuisines of the world and in all price ranges.

And yet it’s worth look­ing beyond Marrakech.

Just a few kilo­me­ters out­side the city’s bor­ders, where peo­ple can no longer grow olives and oranges on the rocky soil, the stony desert of Agafay starts.

The desert ris­es from the plain with gen­tle slopes, dom­i­nat­ed by red­dish-yel­low rock and sand. Dur­ing the day, heat shim­mers over the stones, blur­ring the horizon.

The sun­set here is a very unique and extra­or­di­nary spectacle.

The White Camel Lodge

Like a sil­hou­ette, the view stretch­es from east to south on the ever-high­er moun­tain ranges of the foothills, which is final­ly lim­it­ed by the pass­es and peaks of the High Atlas tow­er­ing over 4,000 meters. Until well into ear­ly sum­mer, these peaks with their snow-cov­ered slopes reflect in a unique way the light of the sun glow­ing on the west­ern horizon. 

To the north are the soft bare tops of more hills, while to the west the sun seems to be sink­ing into the foothills of the Agafay rocks.

The stone desert itself appears unspec­tac­u­lar at first glance dur­ing the day.

The nar­row asphalt road is wind­ing like a snake between the rocky hill­tops and seem­ing­ly leads to nowhere. Out of this noth­ing­ness, lone­ly sign­posts with auda­cious names like Scarabeo Camp, Canyon Lodge or Oxy­gen Camp Lodge appear from time to time. If the eye fol­lows the indi­cat­ed direc­tion and the dusty track, the view gets lost in the noth­ing­ness again. From time to time, dust plumes on the hori­zon indi­cate that this road is actu­al­ly being used.

The appear­ance of des­o­la­tion is decep­tive, because at the end of the dusty and seem­ing­ly end­less slopes, camps with sur­pris­ing­ly lux­u­ri­ous offer­ings await visitors. 

One of our favorites from the vari­ety of offers is the White Camel Lodge, because it com­bines every­thing that the vis­i­tor can expect in the Agafay in the evening. 

Along the hill­top, with the best view of the sur­round­ing coun­try­side, tents are lined up with every­thing from sim­ple rooms to lux­u­ry suites. 

Behind the tents, the clear water of a pool sparkles in the sun­light on a plateau, framed by a panoram­ic bar. Tucked away and with a sense of the beau­ti­ful view is a very nice­ly fur­nished tent for the evening dinner.

It is a spec­tac­u­lar expe­ri­ence to sit by the pool with a glass of wine and take in the light, the wind as well as the mag­nif­i­cent scenery. The sun changes col­ors in the sky and sur­round­ing moun­tains every sec­ond from sun­ny bright into crim­son and to the pale blue of the first hints of night.

The heat of the day gives way to the pleas­ant cool­ness of the night.

The tremen­dous col­or spec­ta­cle is fol­lowed by a din­ner with sev­er­al cours­es of orig­i­nal Moroc­can food. 

With the begin­ning of dark­ness, torch­es and fires are lit. The dark­er it gets, the more the camp trans­forms into a mag­i­cal African place where shad­ows dance across the tent walls and strange sounds buzz in the air. Like dark com­pan­ions, the moun­tains con­stant­ly watch the hori­zon, while a breath­tak­ing star­ry sky stretch­es from left to right, all above the heads of the visitors.

The evening ends by sit­ting next to one of the fires, the air car­ry­ing the sounds of drums and bells from a lit­tle fur­ther away. With a drink in hand, friends and good com­pa­ny engrossed in con­ver­sa­tion, spanned by a sea of a thou­sand twin­kling stars — this is the final mag­ic of the Agafay, a com­bi­na­tion of expe­ri­ence and Moroc­can enchantment.

An unfor­get­table memory.

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Arrangements

An arrange­ment for a vis­it to one of the camps is very easy to orga­nize. As in most Riads and accom­mo­da­tions, our man­ag­er at Riad Selouane will take care of a book­ing at the desired camp. For din­ner, it is usu­al­ly enough to arrange it in the morn­ing after break­fast. If the vis­it should be com­bined with oth­er activ­i­ties, a book­ing the day before is recommended.

In the city itself, there is an agency for all kinds of excur­sions in almost every alley. They are usu­al­ly rec­og­niz­able by col­or­ful pic­tures of off-road vehi­cles, camel rides, quads or desert scenes. The excur­sions are always book­able includ­ing the arrival and departure. 

Most camps pick up their guests in Mar­rakech and bring them back as well.

Here you need to pay atten­tion to the place of pick­up and the time.

Pay­ment is usu­al­ly imme­di­ate­ly due, drinks are charged at the camp at the end and are payable before departure.

In addi­tion to cash, the camps also accept major cred­it cards — pay­ments via app are usu­al­ly not yet available.

An arrange­ment made by your hotel offers the advan­tage that the dri­vers con­tact the Riad upon return­ing, com­bined with the ser­vice of being accom­pa­nied to the pick-up point. 

It is also pos­si­ble to com­bine an evening at the Agafay with a day trip to the sur­round­ing area — the hotels will be hap­py to orga­nize such arrange­ments for you.

In a good camp, the prices are high, for a din­ner you have to cal­cu­late over 50€ with­out drinks, plus a pos­si­ble pool use and the trans­fer. The agen­cies in the city offer cheap­er pack­ages, but the qual­i­ty of the camps and the food can not com­pete with the lux­u­ry camps.

A pack­age for 40 — 50€ per per­son includ­ing food, trans­fer and pool does­n’t have to be bad, but you should have a clos­er look at the rat­ings of the offered camp e.g. at Tri­pad­vi­sor before you make a reser­va­tion. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the con­di­tions change quite quick­ly, so you should always get cur­rent information.

Driving to the camp

When the tour oper­a­tor picks you up, they usu­al­ly spec­i­fy an exact time and place. How­ev­er, it is advis­able to ensure a pick-up time at least three hours before sun­set in Mar­rakech. This leaves enough time to dis­cov­er the camp before the light of the sun begins to enchant the landscape. 

Our man­ag­er usu­al­ly places the pick up point at Dar el Bacha square, this is a three minute walk from our Riad Selouane. 

The jour­ney is made in com­fort­able and well-main­tained off-road vehi­cles, or minibus­es. The dri­ving time is about an hour, depend­ing on traffic. 

If the con­ver­sa­tions with the dri­ver should actu­al­ly exhaust them­selves, which is actu­al­ly out of ques­tion giv­en the sheer end­less base of sto­ries and myths about Mar­rakech, then sounds from the radio set the rhythm of the dri­ve. For those who don’t like Berber music, the Moroc­can hit parade from Hit-Radio Mar­rakech is rec­om­mend­ed. Often a copy of the hits known from the home­land — just in Arabic. 

With music from the radio, the many con­struc­tion sites of the incred­i­bly fast-grow­ing city fly by to the left and right of the street. As bleak as the con­struc­tion sites look, large adver­tis­ing signs announce what will soon be real­ized here as a new stan­dard of liv­ing. And despite all the progress, don­key carts, rick­ety bicy­cles and smok­ing mope­ds with up to four peo­ple on them are part of the every­day street scene. Just like fur­ther out, out­side the new con­struc­tion areas, the olive and orange groves and the euca­lyp­tus trees. 

Activities

Many camps offer more activ­i­ties in addi­tion to hav­ing dinner. 

They offer seclud­ed places for pri­vate din­ing for two in your own tent, medi­um sized tents for groups and even large event tents for entire par­ties and all occasions.

The pool in the camps can usu­al­ly also be used by the day guests. There­fore, it is rec­om­mend­ed to pack a tow­el and swimwear. Tow­els are only pro­vid­ed as a ser­vice in a few camps. 

For day­time activ­i­ties, quad rides through the Agafay, over­look­ing the city of Mar­rakech rest­ing on the plain, are at the top of the list.

In each camp there is the pos­si­bil­i­ty of short or extend­ed camel rides. The camels them­selves are extreme­ly patient and gen­tle ani­mals for the inex­pe­ri­enced rid­er. Led by a guide, they walk with their soft large hooves over sand and stony ground. From the slight­ly sway­ing sad­dle you get anoth­er view of the land­scape. Just imag­ine to be on the way to Tim­buk­tu in this way for 56 days…

For the evening, the camps offer a vari­ety of spec­ta­cles from music to shows with rid­ers and hors­es to fireworks.

How­ev­er, since a musi­cian with rat­tles and drums gives at least one inter­lude at every evening meal and the evening itself gives so many impres­sions, you get to enjoy Moroc­can cul­ture in almost every camp.

The Agafay is a real desert: as warm as it was dur­ing the day — it can get sen­si­tive­ly cold in the evening, espe­cial­ly in the win­ter months. A warm jack­et against the night­ly chill pro­vides more well-being after din­ner while look­ing into the seem­ing­ly end­less sea of stars.

Food and drink at the camp

A pep­per­mint tea is usu­al­ly served as a wel­come to the camp. 

Most camps offer local drinks and fresh juices as well as Moroc­can wines and a selec­tion of spir­its. The soft drinks range from well-known brands to ton­ic water. Beer usu­al­ly comes in a can.

Meals at the camps are usu­al­ly divid­ed into three or four cours­es, tra­di­tion­al­ly Moroc­can, and served in tents or on seat­ed ter­races in front of the tents, depend­ing on pref­er­ence and season.

The meal usu­al­ly starts with a soup, often a deli­cious hari­ra. Then there is a choice of tagine, with lamb or chick­en, refined with fruits such as dates and plums. This is accom­pa­nied by couscous.

Fol­lowed by a bar­be­cue plate of local meats, accom­pa­nied by the deli­cious warm flatbread. 

Final­ly, of course, there is a dessert, rang­ing from oranges with cin­na­mon to crème brulée.

The meal is usu­al­ly accom­pa­nied by pleas­ant back­ground music from often very rus­tic loud­speak­ers. The music is inter­rupt­ed between cours­es with a live per­for­mance. This involves three or more musi­cians com­ing from table to table with drums and jin­gles and let­ting the pom-poms on their caps cir­cle along with the rhythm and singing. It looks eas­i­er than it is — but you’re wel­come to try it out for yourself. 

As a typ­i­cal finale, tea is offered at the end of the meal with some moroc­can pastries.

Returning to the city

The dri­vers wait patient­ly at the entrance of the camp in their off-road vehi­cles or bus­es and are often over­whelmed by Euro­pean punc­tu­al­i­ty. The mot­to is: always take your time and enjoy the evening.

The return trip through the dark­ness makes the way seem com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent. Lights in the desert indi­cate where more camps are or where oth­er off-road vehi­cles are just on their way back to Marrakech. 

Occa­sion­al­ly, peo­ple walk along the road in the dark. Their des­ti­na­tion seems com­plete­ly unknown to the observ­er: here is only waste­land!  With the pass­ing of the R212, euca­lyp­tus trees line the street again and sud­den­ly there is life on the street even at a late hour. Bar­be­cue stands whiz past the win­dow in the light of neon lamps. Dense clouds of smoke rise from the hot bar­be­cue fires into the dark­ness. Chil­dren run through the night, dogs watch the cars, and bicy­clists make some­times dare­dev­il maneuvers. 

For the dri­vers of the camps this is com­mon­place, they know the game as well as most of the passers-by. Every now and then they greet each oth­er or even sound the horn. 

Many Riads in the city are locat­ed like Riad Selouane direct­ly in the med­i­na. Since most of the alleys are too nar­row for cars, the SUVs or minibus­es do not dri­ve right up to the Riad. So it is still a lit­tle walk to get to the hotel. 

The streets and alleys of the med­i­na are safe at night. Some­times, espe­cial­ly young men approach the tourists and want to sell some­thing. Here it is nec­es­sary to refuse polite­ly but firmly. 

More cau­tion requires ori­en­ta­tion! Since the mer­chants have dis­man­tled all the stalls and cleared away the lush dis­plays of goods, every alley looks com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent at night than dur­ing the day.

There­fore, most Riads con­sid­er it part of the ser­vice to per­son­al­ly pick up their guests after an evening out­ing and escort them to the Riad with­out any detours. 

An evening in the Agafay Desert is a very special experience!

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